Underworld Unleashed
by Mr Sinister
Summary: More from Web-Slinger X. The New York gang scene is getting restless, and Spider-Man decides he must investigate it before a major war breaks out.
1. Underworld Unleashed: Part One

Peter ran from the Green Goblin through a dark, ill-lit wood, his baby clutched close to his chest to protect her from the burning heat of the explosions that the Goblin was causing with his bombs and sparkle blasters. He could hear the Goblin's glider getting closer all the time, its engine whining with the strain that the Goblin was putting on it. It sounded like a demon escaping from the seventh circle of hell, and it chilled Peter to the bone. 

   "Give her back, Parker!" the Goblin howled. "You'll never escape me! Don't you see – this is only the beginning!" He threw more pumpkin bombs, ripping trees from their moorings, the ancient branches falling with what Peter thought were screaming sounds. Wails and moans issued forth from their splintered trunks, and, instinctively, Peter clutched his child closer to him. He was concentrating so hard on doing that that he didn't hear the telltale _pee-yow_ of a pumpkin bomb impacting behind him, his spider-sense seeming to abandon him just when he needed it most. He tripped, stumbled, and fell, his baby flying out of his arms. He screamed with fear as he watched the delicate little figure go tumbling towards the ground where he knew that she would be broken like a dry twig. Before that could happen, though, the Goblin swooped around and caught her deftly. Stunned with fear, Peter could only watch as the Goblin loomed over him, suddenly appearing to be twenty feet tall as he blocked out all the meager light. 

   "This is where it ends, Parker," he said, with a trace of sick amusement under his words. He reached into his bag of tricks, and Peter braced himself for the killing blow – 

– and was hit by a pillow, full in the face. He opened his eyes, and saw his beautiful wife standing over him, clutching a soft feathered pillow in both hands, her coppery hair tumbling down her face and framing her gorgeous green eyes and full lips. She was still dressed only in her lacy nightshirt, and for a moment the desire to take her in his arms was almost overwhelming. In fact, it _was_ overwhelming, and he grabbed her and gave her a deep "good morning" kiss. Gently, MJ eased herself out of it and said, "Sorry, stud – no can do. Jonah called while you were sleeping off last night. He needs to see you as soon as you can be at the Daily Bugle. He sounded like he wanted to wring your neck." 

   "Oh, Jonah always sounds like that," Peter replied, a little disappointed, getting out of bed and going over to his closet to find a clean shirt and some pressed pants. "He loves me really." 

   "Well, you better hurry, or he won't for much longer," MJ said. "He told me to tell you that if you don't get there before eleven, you're fired." Peter rubbed his chin and nodded sagely. 

   "I see," he said, trying to sound unworried. "And what time is it now?" 

   "Ten thirty," MJ said with a wry smile. 

   "Oh, boy," Peter said. Quickly, he threw the shirt and pants on over his Spidey costume which Peter had also cleaned and pressed, thanks to MJ's insistence that he not leave symbiote residue all over the house, before leaping down the stairs, putting his shoes and socks on and executing a graceful landing as he neared the ground. Rushing out the door, he shouted "Tell Jonah I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll get a bagel in the city for breakfast, okay? I love you, MJ!" 

   "I love you, too, Peter," MJ said, laughing. "I should have my head examined." 

* * *

   Peter managed to stumble through the doors of the _Daily Bugle_ before eleven, after much insane web slinging and running across rooftops. He managed to catch his breath before walking up to the main office level, where he was greeted almost straight away by Glory Grant, her chocolate-colored skin glowing in the bright sunshine filtering through the office's windows and Venetian blinds. She smiled at him, displaying brilliantly white teeth and waved, saying "Hi, Peter!" 

   "Hey, Glory," Peter replied, a little breathlessly. "Jonah told me he wanted to see me?" 

   "He's in his office, Peter. Go on through," Glory replied. "I'll buzz him for you – tell him you've arrived. Better that he shouts at me than you – you look like you had a rough night." 

   Peter grinned like a naughty schoolboy and said, "You could say that." His grin widened when he saw that Glory had cottoned on to his meaning, and she gave him a sly wink and a smile of her own, before pressing the intercom button with her right hand. 

   "Mr. Jameson? Peter Parker's here to see you." Glory waited a second before JJJ's gruff, cigar-roughened voice growled from the intercom's small speaker in his trademark blustering fashion. 

   "Send him in, Miss Grant," he said. "I don't have all day." Peter could just see the old newsman rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of getting a freelancer to do the work of a staff photographer. The old skinflint was probably watering at the mouth. 

   "Good luck, Peter," Glory said with mock-sincerity. 

   Peter rubbed his chin. "His bark's worse than his bite, Glory. You should know that by now." Glory nodded with a smile, and gathered up some papers on her desk so that she could go and deposit them in a filing cabinet in the reference section of the offices' storage space. 

   "Peter!" came a voice from off to his right. Peter turned his head to see Robbie walking towards him, his red and black tie loosened even at this early hour, and hanging limply against his chest. "Good to see you, son." 

   "Good to see you too, Robbie," Peter said with genuine affection. The dignified editor of the _Daily Bugle was the closest thing to a father figure that Peter had, and he looked up to Robbie in so many ways that it was impossible not to be in awe of the man. _

   "How you holding up, Peter?" Robbie said, the look in his eyes indicating that he didn't mean simply in the paying-taxes-and-bills sense of the phrase – he meant in the Spider-Man sense. Peter still felt bad about "confessing" to Robbie that he had known Spider-Man for years, even though that was true in a certain sense. He wished he could have told him the whole truth, but that would have been too dangerous, even for a man like Robbie. He took a deep breath. Since Glory had left, he felt a little more comfortable speaking about it, even in cloak-and-dagger circumstances such as this. 

   "I'm… fine, Robbie," he said. "Really, MJ and I are doing pretty good." 

   "Don't give me that, Peter," Robbie said. "Come on, son, don't keep this to yourself.  I want you to let me know if you need my help, okay?" 

   "Sure," Peter replied. "You're a good friend, Robbie." 

   "Someone has to look out for you kids," Robbie said with a wry smile. "Go on – you don't want to keep Jonah waiting any longer. He hasn't had a cigar yet, and he's getting real cranky." 

   "Oh boy," Peter said with mock horror. While he was glad that Jonah's foul-smelling cigars were off the agenda for the moment, thanks to Jonah's wife Marla, he didn't like the thought of becoming a focus for Jonah's nicotine-starved vitriol, so he made his way carefully through the offices towards the door at the end of the room that had Jonah's name up in thick black letters. The words "J. Jonah Jameson – Publisher" had recently been re-stenciled onto the frosted glass and gleamed. Peter thought that Jonah had to be feeling better now that Norman Osborn wasn't clutching the _Bugle_ with his bloody claws any more. The new lettering would massage his ego until the sting of having to kow-tow to Osborn had faded, Peter supposed. He knocked on the door and heard Jonah yell, "Come in, Parker!" in an irritated tone. In the office, Peter saw that both Flash Thompson and Betty Brant were either side of the desk – Flash, he thought, was doing well to have kept his job here, especially since it had been Osborn who had got him the job in the first place. He thought that Jonah might have got rid of him to take away the last vestiges of Osborn's slimy touch. 

   "Peter!" Betty said. "Good to see you!" She hurried up to him and gave him a warm hug. 

   "Careful, Betty, or you'll make Flash jealous," Peter said with a wry smile as he returned her embrace, watching Flash's face split into a wide grin, despite the fact that he had had to spend all morning in Jameson's overly-abrasive company. 

   "Take your hands off my star reporter, Parker," JJJ said abruptly. "This isn't a singles bar." 

   "Sorry, Jonah," Peter said apologetically, as Betty bade goodbye to him and left, clutching a file of press clippings to her chest. "What did you want to see me about?" 

   "I need you to go on an assignment with Ben Urich," JJJ replied, settling back into his chair. His fingers fidgeted, deprived of their comforting cigar. "He wants to follow up some information he got about a meeting between the Kingpin and Don Fortunato tomorrow night – he thinks they'll talk about taking over the territory of the Rose and the Black Tarantula now that those two bosses aren't around any more. I'll let him tell you the rest. Now get going, before I have you arrested for loitering!" He gestured gruffly towards the doorway. 

   "Sure, Jonah," Peter said. "Thanks for the assignment." 

   "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jonah snapped, in an attempt to brush off Peter's gratitude, but Peter saw through it immediately. He decided that he would spare Jonah further discomfort and go find Ben so that he could get more information on this whole situation. It sounded intriguing, and he wanted to know as much as possible about it before he went rushing in unprepared. 

* * *

   Jeff Stankowicz watched the monitors at Ravencroft, a packet of peanuts and a soda sitting on the little shelf in front of him. He yawned and looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty, and he was only an hour-and-a-half into his shift. He pressed a couple of buttons and shifted between the views of half a dozen security cameras, showing the cells of various supercriminals. Here the Rhino drooled and mumbled, dosed up to the eyeballs with sedatives to keep him docile, there the psychotic Carnage cackled and muttered insanely to himself, his redheaded stare almost burning holes in the lens of the camera trained permanently on his cell. Jeff suppressed a shudder. He'd been here the last time that freak had got loose. He'd had to help them sponge the blood off the walls and try to get the smell of ripped flesh out of the air. He'd not been able to sleep soundly for months. The Silver Surfer had, it appeared, decided to let the shell of cosmic energy that Carnage had been encased in lapse, or had been forced to draw its power back to himself somehow. Jeff didn't know, but he'd been happy that the microwave generators had been on in any case when Carnage had come around. He'd smelt the stink of burning symbiote tissue as the strange alien that coated Kasady's body thrashed and convulsed under the intense heat, and been extremely glad that he'd been wearing a spare suit of Guardsman armor and had been carrying a microwave rifle. 

   "Go to sleep," said a voice behind him. Jeff whirled in his chair, his hand going to the pistol at his waist, but he could see no one there. He called out "Who's there?" and began to get up, but then he felt a heavy object thud into his skull at the temple, and he knew no more. 

   The air in front of him shimmered slightly and a tall man appeared as if he were a mirage in the desert. His body was clothed in a black bodysuit that seemed to absorb the meager light in the room, giving him the appearance of a living black hole. "Where is she?" he muttered, flicking through the security camera views with the control on the shelf. Tapping the button briefly once or twice more he found what he was looking for. 

   _There_, he thought triumphantly. _Now to break her out…_ Reaching over towards the security toggle controls, he flipped the switch that he was looking for and touched a point on his throat, shimmering into invisibility again. 

* * *

   The woman called Delilah sat in her cell, chained with adamantium shackles – the only things that could withstand her awesome strength. With one hand she lifted a dumb-bell and with the other she drew shapes on the wall of her cell with a piece of chalk that she had managed to hide from the guards. They were not good pictures – no, they had never been good pictures, not since kindergarten – but they kept her occupied, and the wall was a good canvas. She drew a little spider and a tiny rose, and smiled faintly. The drawing was the only thing that was keeping her sane. _How ironic, she thought bitterly. __This place is doing the exact opposite thing that it's supposed to. _

   Across from her, Cletus Kasady waved demonically at her, drool spilling over his lips as he made goo-goo eyes and little kissy noises in her direction. She spat at him. _Freak, she thought, as Kasady stalked closer to the bars of his cell and waggled his pinkie finger at her. _

   "Hey, sweetheart," he cackled, "you ever been with a guy like me?" Little tendrils of symbiote curled around him in order to accentuate his words. 

   "No," she said wearily, "and you aren't my type. Too bloodthirsty." 

   "Oh, sweetie, you say the _nicest things!" Kasady crowed, licking his lips with his long, pink tongue. "I didn't know you cared." _

   "I don't," she replied tersely. "Shut up." 

   "Oh come _on_, baby, lighten up!" Kasady said as he leered at her chest with his vivid green eyes. "Want to know about chaos?" 

   "No," Delilah replied. "Why should I?" 

   "Because there ain't no God, sweetie!" Kasady howled. "An' you know what that means? We can do whatever we want to, an' there ain't _nobody_ who can stop us, not when you an' I got the power, like we do! We can kill, we can cut, hack an' slash them feebs weaker than us, and there ain't a _damn thing that creeps like Spider-Man can do!" His symbiote swirled over him excitedly, as if his talk of chaos and bloodletting had aroused it somehow. Delilah was unable to tear her eyes away from its oozing, twisting movement. It was hypnotic in a weird kind of way. Suddenly, Kasady was thrown back against the wall of his cell. Delilah started suddenly, rising off her bunk a little. She could see a burn mark on the front of Kasady's grey Ravencroft T-shirt, and inside the circle there was a little patch of reddened, blistered skin. Delilah thought she must have gone mad, when the air in front of her cell shimmered and a black-garbed figure appeared as if out of nowhere. His fingers stroked the door release mechanism and the bars of Delilah's cell slid aside. _

   "Come," he said. "You're getting out of here." He held out a suit like his and indicated that she put it on so that she could escape. He held out a small metal key and unlocked her shackles with it, the heavy links falling away with a clatter. Delilah rubbed her wrists and slipped on the suit that the mysterious man had given her. 

   "Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Who do you work for?" 

   "Not here," the man said. "Come with me and you'll get your answers soon enough." He indicated that she should flip up the hood on her suit, and then touched the spot on his neck that activated his cloaking mechanism. Delilah felt in the corresponding spot on her suit and found a small nub of plastic. She pushed it, and vanished. 

* * *

   Wilson Fisk looked out over the city of New York from his towering headquarters, his massive tree-trunk arms tucked behind his back. He watched the lights of the city as they blinked and twinkled like earth-born stars, and he took pleasure in knowing that a good proportion of them were under his control. Fortunato was nothing, an annoyance at best – the Cosa Nostra were worthless thugs. Fortunato had HYDRA backing him up, true, but even HYDRA's resources paled in comparison to his. He would crush Don Fortunato as surely as he had Silvermane and Hammerhead. It was only a matter of time. 

   At that moment, he heard one of his scurrying assistants enter the room cautiously, and he turned to see a nervous-looking young man tiptoeing towards him, clutching a piece of paper in his hand. 

   "Mr. Fisk, sir?" he said uncertainly. "News from your field operative." He held out the paper, and the Kingpin took it in his massive fingers, and opened it out to see what was written on it. 

   When he had finished reading it, he smiled thinly. Things were going to plan, and the day that Fortunato met his end would be arriving soon. 

* * *


	2. Underworld Unleashed: Part Two

   Peter Parker watched Ben Urich moving around his office, rummaging around in filing cabinets for crumpled pieces of paper and dog-eared files, always knowing exactly where to find what he was looking for, even though the place looked like a bomb had hit it. He wondered how he could know where everything was in such an environment, but then a mental picture of his and MJ's bedroom at home flashed up in his mind, and he considered the question answered. The two of them kept it in a similar sort of state but they too knew where everything was – if she were still alive, Aunt May would have said "A place for everything, and everything in its place." 

   Peter thought he should interrupt Ben's furtive burrowing, and coughed gently to alert the grizzled old reporter to his presence. Ben looked up, adjusted his glasses slightly, and then said "Hello, Peter. Come on in." 

   "Hey, Ben," Peter replied. "Jonah says you need an ace photographer to help you out with your story." 

   "So why'd he send you, kid?" Ben said with a smile. "Good to have you on the team, Peter. Sit down and I'll give you what I know." He gestured to a wooden chair that had cracked leather padding on its seat, and on the backrest. Peter could see that it had once been a vivid burgundy but was now a sort of faded red color, streaks of paler leather showing through here and there where the dye had bled out completely. He sat down gingerly, expecting it to collapse under his weight, but the chair proved to be stronger than it looked, and supported him without much trouble. He relaxed and watched Ben sit in the chair opposite him, behind the oak desk with an overflowing ashtray and stacks of papers on its scarred surface. Ben sat back in his own chair and lit a Camel with practiced ease, the flame illuminating his face for a second and then clicking off as he stowed the lighter in his top pocket. 

   "You really ought to give those things up, Ben," Peter said, instantly knowing that Ben had probably heard that line a million times before. "They'll kill you." He thought he'd probably heard that one before too, but he said it anyway. Maybe one day Ben would take notice of it. 

   "Yeah, I know, kid," Ben replied. "But something's got to kill you in the end, right?" He smiled a wry smile and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the stale air of the office. Peter blinked and wrinkled his nose as the odor of the smoldering tobacco reached his nostrils. He supposed Ben had a point. But he had a job to do, so… 

   "What've you found out about this gang meeting, Ben?" he asked, deciding to cut to the chase as soon as he could. 

   Ben shrugged and shook his head. "Not much, Pete, but what I do have worries me. Seems that the Kingpin and Don Fortunato want this city all to themselves, and they're willing to wipe each other out to get what they want. From the looks of things, they don't care who they kill to get it, either. Homicide and gun crimes are through the roof. Hell's Kitchen is a bloodbath waiting to happen at the moment. A… friend of mine… tells me that stockpiles of weapons are being handed out to punks and lowlifes like candy on Halloween. He's stopped at least six separate gangs from blowing holes in one another with hollow-point ammunition and belts of seven-six-two." He shuddered. "Put in words of one syllable: it's bad, Peter. Real bad." 

   Peter guessed that Ben's "friend" had to be Daredevil. The Man Without Fear often confided in Ben Urich because of his connections, and the fact that Ben was a damn good journalist on top of that. As Spider-Man, he'd checked out stories with Ben more than once. He suspected that Ben would find out the connection between himself and Spider-Man at some point, if he hadn't already, but he found himself oddly unworried by that prospect. Aside from Robbie, there was nobody else at the Bugle he'd have trusted more to keep his secret. 

   Peter scratched at the back of his neck and exhaled loudly. "Doesn't sound good, does it?" 

   "No, Pete, it doesn't," Ben replied bleakly. "My friend tells me those two lowlifes are planning to meet on the waterfront at nine p.m., three days from now, in a warehouse that Hammerhead used to own. Fortunato and Fisk both say they have a legitimate claim to it, so it's as close to neutral territory as those two can get. We have until they get there to find out as much as we can about what's going down." 

   "Thanks, Ben," Peter said. "I hope we hit pay-dirt before it all blows up in our faces." 

   Ben looked up at him with worried eyes. "Me too, Pete. Me too."

* * *

   Peter took his leave from Ben's office, more worried than he had ever been. He didn't want to see New York bathing in its own blood, not by a long shot. With that in mind, he'd have to try and do whatever he could both in and out of his Spider-Man costume. He decided to try and look up Daredevil to find out what the horned vigilante had learned about the Kingpin and Fortunato. Ducking into an alley and switching from his street clothes to his Spider-Man outfit, he webbed his clothes to a wall about twenty feet off the ground so as to make sure that his clothes were safe. He didn't want to have to websling all the way back to Forest Hills to get a fresh set of clothes – he barely had enough money to buy a new shirt, let alone a whole new wardrobe. Besides, he knew MJ would have something to say about that – she could, if pushed, nag with the best of them. He was just glad that didn't happen very often. 

   Firing off a web so that it stuck to the corner of the _Bugle_ building, Spidey swung off in the direction of Hell's Kitchen. Gaining as much height as he could before he aimed another thick, sticky strand of webbing at another building, Spider-Man pursued a beeline course towards the lower, grimier buildings of Hell's Kitchen that he rarely, if ever, frequented. It would be a long trip, he knew, so he decided he'd try and hitch a lift on a truck or a van at some point. Web fluid was expensive to make, and he didn't want to waste any if he could possibly help it. MJ would have a field day with that, too. The notion brought a smile to his lips beneath the mask. If he'd told anyone else about that, they'd think she was an unrepentant harridan, but he knew better. He wouldn't change her for the world. 

   Not for the world. 

   Below him, he heard a bank alarm go off, and he sighed. There seemed to be bank robberies going on all the time in New York, and he wondered once again why common thugs thought it was a good idea to target banks in the super-hero capital of the world. Did they think, perhaps, that they would escape the notice of at least one of the spandex crowd? Slinging a couple of webs downwards so that he was able to somersault to the ground, landing gracefully on the points of his toes like a dancer, he waited outside the bank while whoever was inside finished up what they were doing. After a couple of seconds, a man in a strange, purple costume with green trim and a buzz saw mounted on top of his head burst out of the bank's wrecked front door, clutching bulging sacks that doubtless contained cash numbering in the thousands of dollars. Spidey folded his arms, his shoulders sagging in disbelief. 

   "You have _got to be kidding me!" _

   It was the Grinder, a fourth-string small-time thug with delusions of grandeur and a highly acute sense of his own worth. Spider-Man thought that maybe he ought to call the Great Lakes Avengers, or the Lightning Rods, or whatever they were calling themselves this week. Maybe they'd be able to handle a moron like this without cracking up. Last thing Spidey had heard, the kid called Nova had managed to subdue this loser without much trouble, so they'd have even fewer headaches. Spidey was more scared of the fact that he'd thought of Nova, an experienced hero in his own right, as a "kid", than of the idiot who stood before him right now. He wondered if that ought to worry him. 

   "Yo, Grinder!" he called at the top of his lungs, as the would-be super-villain tried to get away. "Don't you think you should just, you know, give up? The cops are going to be here any minute, pal – and the fashion police want to question you for crimes against spandex." 

   The Grinder struck a melodramatic pose and dropped his bags of money on the concrete, scattering their contents onto the ground. "Give up? You insult me, Spider-Man! Why, you and I could have a battle that would be celebrated through the ages!" 

   "Yeah, yeah," Spider-Man said, webbing the Grinder's mouth shut with both hands. "I hear that three, four times a week. Coming from Doc Ock, I'd believe it. From you?" He waved a hand derisively, and webbed the Grinder's feet to the floor with the other. "Let's just say I'm less than impressed." Spraying a thick layer of webbing over the Grinder's primary "weapon" so as to gum up its workings and stop its whirling motion, Spider-Man left the humiliated Grinder in the capable hands of the NYPD. He thought that would be punishment enough for someone so full of themselves. 

* * *

   MJ had taken the day off for once – she didn't want to stay at home and clean up Peter's mess; not now that she had had a taste of what getting back into modeling was like. She wanted to get back into it more than ever, now, but not in front of the camera; not all of the time, anyway. She wanted to be able to show off designs that she herself had created, and perhaps even model them. With that in mind, she had spent the morning in an art shop in the Village, buying drawing paper, some colored HB pencils, and an easel. She juggled the heavy easel and bag that she was carrying so that each arm got a rest from its respective load. She sat down at one of the art house cafés that proliferated like rabbits throughout the Village, and ordered a cappuccino and a cream cake from the waitress that gravitated to her table almost instantly. All around her, MJ could see young men and women sketching passer-bys with charcoal and painting with watercolors almost everywhere that she looked. The artists were often clad in brightly colored clothes and sported outlandish tattoos or piercings, but they were obviously passionate about their work, and let everybody know as much through their outward dress and actions. MJ wondered if she should go and get the tattoo she had wanted for her eighteenth birthday, but hadn't been able to afford from waitressing tips alone, just so she could say that she was part of the crowd. She discounted that idea; Peter would freak out if he came home to find that she'd had a Chinese dragon tattooed onto her thigh.   

   _Maybe I should just get my tongue pierced instead. Instantly she counted that out, too, because of the possible effects it would have on Peter. He'd probably have a heart attack. _

   _Peter's just way too conservative, she thought, disappointed. __I should shave his head while he's asleep and see what he thinks about that. The notion of Peter waking up with a head as bald as an egg made her chuckle furtively to herself. She had no doubt that he'd be less amused, and would scream bloody murder at her for who knew __how long, but the look of horror on his face when he realized his thick head of chestnut hair was gone would be more than enough satisfaction for her. _

   The waitress came back, bringing with her a foamy, chocolate-sprinkled cappuccino and a fat, sugary cream cake. MJ took both of them gratefully and tipped the waitress far too much, before biting down into the deliciously doughy cake. Cream spilt into her mouth and she felt a pang of guilt – she had no illusions that this was frightfully bad for her – but then she decided that she had already burned off the equivalent calories carrying the easel and pencils around, so she finished the cake off with no further feelings of regret, sipping the cappuccino until all that was left of it was a thin froth at the bottom of the deep cup. 

   Then she had a flash of inspiration. She set up the easel and took out a fresh, sharp pencil, and began to sketch the people walking by her. She used her imagination to embellish their clothes here and there, giving shirts more vivid colors, skirts and trousers more fluted angles. It was hard at first, but she eventually settled into a rhythm, finding it easier the more that she did. In the top right corner of the paper she doodled a small, golden-armored Prodigy – one of the two identities that she had designed for Peter when he had adopted four new costumed _nommes_ de guerre_ to hide from Norman Osborn. In the opposite corner she drew a tiny, leather-jacketed Ricochet – the other identity that she had helped Peter with. Eventually she had filled at least twenty pages of her sketchbook with drawings of ordinary passer-bys, and her hand ached from the constant, darting action of her pencil, which was worn down and blunted through constant use. Looking at her watch, she realized that she had spent four hours here in her seat, caffeine and sugar the only things that had been keeping her going. She folded the pad back over and collapsed the easel, and decided to make her way home. She needed a rest after expending so much energy. _

_Just wait till you see these, tiger..._

* * *

   Spider-Man leapt across the dark and grimy buildings of Hell's Kitchen, his webbing less than useful in the squat brick buildings of this part of New York. _Oh well, he thought wryly,__ at least I can say I'm getting my fair share of exercise. He wondered how Daredevil managed to get around with that billy club of his – if webs weren't going to cut it, how could a simple nylon cord? _

   Ahead of him, suddenly, Spidey saw a red figure swinging expertly, somersaulting and twisting like a circus acrobat while his billy club's line hooked into the smallest nooks and crannies without any effort at all, or so it seemed. Swallowing his envy, Spidey followed Daredevil until he saw the other hero alight on a rooftop ahead of him. As he approached, he saw the other man standing motionless with his back to him. 

   "Daredevil!" he said urgently. "Matt, I –" 

   "No need to shout, Peter," Daredevil said, inclining his head slightly to one side. "I smelled you a couple of blocks over. And you make a lot of noise for someone who's supposed to be so agile." 

   "Ha, ha, Matt," Spidey replied. "You're a regular laugh riot." 

   "I haven't had as much practice as you, Peter, but I do try my best." Daredevil stowed his billy club on his hip and folded his arms. "What are you here for, Peter? This isn't your territory, so you must want something. Lessons in crimefighting, perhaps?" Spidey saw him let a slight smile cross his lips. 

   "I want to know if you can help me with Fortunato and the Kingpin," Spider-Man said, and watched the humor on Matt Murdock's face vanish. "Ben Urich told me a friend of his had told him when and where those two were meeting, and I figured he meant you. Don't tell me my faith in you was misplaced?" 

   Daredevil sighed and shook his head. "How bad did Ben tell you it's been getting out here?" 

   "In his exact words? Really bad," Spidey said sadly. "He said that there were kids using machine guns on each other." 

   "Yes, they are – and that's only the tip of the iceberg," Daredevil said softly. "The gangs are being pumped so full of heroin and cocaine that they'll do whatever the Kingpin or Fortunato tells them to do. I've found kids dead on the streets with needles in their veins – the last one I managed to get to was eleven years old. I managed to get him to a hospital, but I don't know if he'll survive without brain damage." 

   "Oh my God," Spider-Man whispered, the phrase less a blasphemy and more a prayer. "You're not kidding, are you?" 

   "I wish I was, Peter, but I'm not," Daredevil replied, shaking his head and scratching at the back of his neck. "I suppose Ben told you what I told him about when the meeting was supposed to happen?" 

   "He said Fortunato and Fisk were meeting in one of Hammerhead's old warehouses on the waterfront, three days from now." 

   "Right. That means we haven't got much time to figure out what to do. Any suggestions?" 

   "We should be at the meeting," Spidey suggested. "I think we both know that." 

   "Agreed," Daredevil said. "They might need us to stop them hurting one another." 

   "And we could catch soldiers for both sides," Spidey replied. "Fortunato and Kingpin aren't going to be there without serious firepower. We'd be doing this city a big favor if we put away most of their big-time enforcers." 

   "That's reason enough for me," Daredevil replied, his blind eyes looking up at the sky as he heard the first far-away rumblings of a summer thunderstorm on the way. "Sounds like a storm's on the way. That's going to make the garbage ferry smell even more than usual." 

   "Yeah," Spidey said ruefully. "That's not going to matter if there's no city left to save, though." 

   "It's still standing right now, Peter," Daredevil answered, laying a scarlet-gloved hand on Spider-Man's shoulder. "Let's make sure that it stays that way." He paused. "Peter, do you know what time it is?" 

   Spider-Man looked the watch he had concealed in one of the pouches on the belt he kept hidden beneath his costume, and saw that it was about five in the evening. He told Daredevil as much, and the scarlet-clad adventurer let out an exasperated breath. "Damn," he said. "I have to check up on a few things." He sighed. "Look, can we meet here again tomorrow night? I want to make sure we have a proper plan of attack." 

   "Good idea," Spidey replied. "I want this to go as smoothly as you do. I hate getting shot. It stings like you wouldn't believe." 

   "No kidding." Spidey could tell from the tone of Daredevil's voice that he knew whereof he spoke, and wished he didn't. "I'll see you tomorrow, then, Peter. Take care of yourself." 

   "You too, Matt," Spidey said, and watched Matt Murdock swing away effortlessly. He was glad that their conversation had ended, in truth, because besides this, he had another errand to run, of a far more personal nature. He had to visit Ravencroft – he'd been doing so for a few weeks now, just to keep an eye on Norman Osborn. He didn't trust the man enough to truly believe that he had lost his memory, but he was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt right now. Time would tell, he guessed, if that assessment held true.

* * *

   Norman Osborn sat on a chair in his cell, clothed in a simple set of cotton overalls that gave his name and precious little else. They were without pockets so as to prevent him from hiding sharp objects, and had buttons instead of a zip. The Ravencroft staff would take no chances with any of their charges – even one that seemed as lucid as Norman Osborn. His face was still scarred viciously with the Mark of Kaine, the spider-webbed ridges of flesh marring what had once been a brutally handsome, determined face. Now Norman Osborn looked like just another super-powered lunatic. On a chair in front of him, a Doctor Thompson sat cross-legged, a clipboard balanced precariously on his thighs. 

   "So, Norman," he said, "can you remember anything about your past now that we've told you who you are?" 

   "I told you the last time we had one of these little… chats, Doctor; no, I can't," Norman replied in a polite, but nonetheless clipped tone, that suggested he didn't like being asked these kinds of futile questions. "Why can't you accept that?" 

   "Because I've seen amnesia patients before, Norman, and I know that your life is hidden away in there somewhere. I'm just trying to bring it to the surface." He paused. "But you have to help me, Norman, or else you and I will get nowhere." 

   Behind the one-way mirror in the north wall of the interview room, Spider-Man stood with Ashley Kafka and watched Norman Osborn's session with Doctor Thompson. Spider-Man was still a little uneasy about Kafka, especially after the Chameleon affair that had left his wife at the mercy of Dmitri Smerdyakov, which had been the result of Ashley's misguided faith in human nature. But Kafka was, for all her bleeding-heart failings (and Spidey hesitated to even think the words anyway – he could hardly talk about having a bleeding heart), an excellent doctor, and he would have had no other one here with him now. 

   "So how's he doing, Doc?" he asked gingerly. 

   "As well as can be expected," Kafka said. "That burn on his face took a long time to heal, but what hurt him the most was not being able to remember what he was before those concrete chunks fell on him. He gets angry a lot of the time because of it – he's put quite a few orderlies in the infirmary with broken arms and sprained wrists. But we're going to help him regain his memory, if it's the last thing I do." 

   Spider-Man winced beneath his mask. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Doc? You know who he is, don't you?" 

   "Yes, Spider-Man, but I would do the same for you, or for anybody who had lost their memory. He's a human being, and he deserves to know who and what he is." 

  Spider-Man shook his head. "It's your call, Doc, but I still think you're making a big mistake. I'm the one he's going to come after when he remembers he's the Goblin. He's going to know that it was me who put him here. I'm not sure I really like the idea of that." 

   "We're going to help him remember that he's Norman Osborn, Spider-Man, not the Green Goblin. He'll be no more of a threat to you than John or I," Dr Kafka said reassuringly. Spider-Man thought that she probably had perfected such a tone on drooling serial killers, and was thus not overly enamored of its soothing overtures. 

   "Excuse me if I don't sound too hopeful, Doc, but I've heard that line before. It never works out." Doctor Kafka smiled, her lips forming an attractive Cupid's-bow shape, and she adjusted her small oval glasses. 

   "There's always a first time, Spider-Man. Let's hope that I can make it happen." 

   Spider-Man made a face. "I really hope you're right, Doc. I really do."


	3. Underworld Unleashed: Part Three

Delilah stood, arms folded, in front of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. She had wondered why the Kingpin broke her out, and now, she finally decided to ask the question. "So why'd you do it, Fisk?" she asked flatly. "Why am I here?" 

   "You were the Rose's chief assassin and enforcer, were you not?" Fisk said in his deep, sonorous voice. 

   "Yeah," Delilah replied. "And I was damn good at my job, too." 

   Fisk sat forward in his reinforced chair, the springs creaking under the shifting weight, and interlaced his fingers. "Well, then I would like to offer you the same position here, under my employment. I need someone to act as my bodyguard for the upcoming negotiations with Fortunato, and you seemed to be the perfect candidate." 

   Delilah raised an elegant eyebrow. "Is that right? What's the pay?" 

   "Twenty thousand a week plus bonuses, the first of which will be yours when you kill Fortunato." 

   Upon hearing this, Delilah grinned. "Make it forty and you got yourself a deal." 

   The Kingpin sighed, and resigned himself to haggling. "Twenty-five," he said. 

   "Thirty-five," Delilah said, her dark eyes flashing with cold intent. 

   "Thirty," the Kingpin shot back. Delilah smiled. 

   "Deal," and her smile widened. "Boss." 

* * *

   Peter Parker, otherwise known as the Amazing Spider-Man, swung home on thick strands of webbing, his body cutting through the gloom like a knife. As he approached the house, he let go his last strand of web and somersaulted through the air before coming to rest silently on the tiles outside his and MJ's bedroom window. As he did so, he could hear two female voices inside. One of them he identified as MJ, and the other he knew as Felicia Hardy, also known in less reputable circles as the Black Cat. They were discussing something, but he could not tell what from his limited vantage point. 

   "Wow, MJ – these are fantastic!" he heard Felicia say, pointing to something just out of his field of vision. 

   "Thank you, Felicia," MJ replied. "I'm glad somebody other than me thinks so – I'd hate to think I put all this work in for nothing." Intrigued, Peter knocked on the window lightly, taking great pleasure in seeing both the women jump. MJ recovered herself and walked over to let him in, and he crawled inside the bedroom, hopping down off the wall onto the thick carpet and removing his mask as he did so, freeing his face up to the warm air in the room. Felicia looked back at MJ and jerked a thumb at him. "What do you say we lynch him, MJ?" 

   MJ shook her head. "Behave, Felicia. That's my man you're talking about." Peter embraced her and kissed her hello, stroking her hair lightly. 

   "Got one of those for me, stud?" Felicia asked. Peter glanced at her, a little confused, until Felicia threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. "Been a while, Peter. You don't call, you don't write – I almost don't think you love me any more." 

   "It has been a while, hasn't it?" Peter said thoughtfully. "What are you doing here, 'Licia?" 

   "MJ invited me over for a coffee and some company, and to ask me what I thought of her designs," Felicia said, shrugging. "Who am I to refuse a friend?" 

   Peter raised an eyebrow. "Designs? What designs?" MJ crossed to the bed and picked up the pad that she had been showing Felicia, flipping it open to the first page so that Peter could see what she had drawn. 

   "I spent the day in the Village doing some sketches, Peter," MJ said. "I want to do some designing as well as modeling, and I thought that was the best way of getting started." 

   Peter flipped through the pages of sketches, his eyes rapt. "These are really good, MJ. I never knew you could do this so well." MJ smiled. 

   "Neither did I, but I'm glad it paid off." She paused. "I really think I've found my niche, Peter. I had so much fun just sitting and sketching – it was great. I'd love to be able to design as well as model my own clothes. This could be a new start for me, Tiger. For both of us." 

   Peter nodded in agreement. "I agree, MJ," he said. "You can't let a talent like this go to waste. Uncle Ben would say 'With great talent –'" 

   "'– There must come great responsibility', I know," MJ said, laughing. "I'll try not to disappoint him, Peter." Peter smiled and tapped her on the end of her nose with his finger affectionately. 

   "You better not," he told her, "or I might have to reconsider why I married you in the first place." 

   "Thank you for the reassurance, Peter," MJ replied. "You make me feel so much better." 

   Peter shrugged. "I try." 

   MJ laughed. "You're a paragon of virtue, Peter." Disengaging herself from his arms she put the pad back on the bed and continued, "Anyway, how was your day, sweetheart? Anything interesting happen to you?" 

   Felicia watched motionless in the background. After all, she just couldn't ruin a husband/wife moment such as this. 

   "Depends what you mean by 'interesting'," Peter said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Ben Urich tells me that the Kingpin and Don Fortunato are getting ready to tear each other apart, and they don't care what they destroy in the process. There're guns and drugs flooding the city and the gangs are getting ready for a full-scale war. It's not good, MJ. Even Daredevil doesn't feel optimistic. I spoke with him earlier today, and Matt thinks that the Don and the Kingpin aren't going to stop until one of them is dead. There's going to be a bloodbath unless they're stopped." MJ sighed. 

   "You're going to get involved in this whatever I say, aren't you?" she said sadly. Peter touched her face with his gloved fingers, gently tracing her soft cheek, and nodded. 

   "I have to, MJ. This is my city – our home. If I don't fight for it, who will?" 

   Felicia stepped forwards. "You know, Peter, you can always count on me. I've been dying for a chance to air out my costume for a while now, and this sounds like my sort of party. This is my city too, and I'll protect it if I can." 

   Peter shook his head. "Absolutely not, Felicia. I can't let you do that. The Kingpin and Fortunato are going to have all of their most powerful heavies there, and without any powers you'd be vulnerable." Felicia rolled her eyes. 

   "Tell that to the Punisher," she said flatly. "You don't see him flying around with a cape and energy blasts coming out of his hands, and he's taken out half of the New York mobs with nothing but an M-16 and a bag full of flashbang grenades." Peter had to admit that she had a good point, and that she looked like she wasn't going to change her stance on this. 

   "Look at it from my point of view, Peter," she continued. "How would you feel, knowing that you had the ability to help to protect your city, and then being told by somebody else that you couldn't do what you felt you had to do because that person felt guilty about your _possibly _getting injured in a _possible_ future gunfight?" 

   Peter gave up. "Okay, Felicia. Okay. But you have to promise me that as soon as it starts getting bad, you get out of there, all right?" Felicia grinned and drew an invisible line in the air with a forefinger. 

   "Score one for me. I'll think about it," she said, mischievously. "You're a good man, Peter Parker – just a little overprotective. I'm a big girl now, and I can look after myself. Remember that." 

   MJ moved over to the door of the room and took a couple of sniffs of the air. "I think the dinner is just about ready." She looked back at Peter and continued "I hope you don't mind, Peter, but I couldn't face doing anything extravagant tonight – so I found some cuts of leftover meat and some vegetables in the refrigerator, and I've made us a kind of stew with all of the bits and pieces. I hope it tastes all right – if it doesn't we could always order out for Chinese instead." Peter shrugged. 

   "Hey – if it's you doing the cooking, it'll be wonderful," he said. "Beats the idea I had. I was just going to dial Domino's and ask for a deep-pan pepperoni and pineapple special for two." MJ laughed, her green eyes twinkling in the dim light. 

   "You might just get your wish yet, tiger," she said. "We'll just have to see how the stew tastes, I guess." 

* * *

   Out on Staten Island, Daredevil crouched low above the window of Don Fortunato's office, listening to every word that was being spoken between him and his son Giacomo Fortunato, otherwise known as Jimmy 6. Fortunato was angry – Daredevil could smell the bitter tang of the Don's emotion wafting off him like a toxic fog. He could hear Jimmy 6's exasperation as he tried unsuccessfully to change his father's mind. 

   "Dad, you can't do this. The Kingpin – he's got more money and resources than we'll ever have. He can wait until we're bled dry and then he'll take what's left for his own. We can't win if we fight him, Dad – that's the truth, I swear to God." 

   "No!" Fortunato snapped, bringing his liver-spotted hand crashing down on his desk, causing Matt Murdock to squint in pain as the sound assaulted his ears like a hammer. "We can win this war. We have HYDRA behind us. We have the families behind us." Daredevil felt Fortunato's heart speeding up for a moment as the old man got a little too agitated, and then sensed it slowing again. "That's why I want you to help me, Giacomo. Fisk has a shipment of heroin coming in from Bangkok tomorrow morning, on Pier 47 at six a.m. I want you to be there to intercept it, and the people Fisk sends to pick it up. I want you to burn everything and leave no witnesses. And I want you to make sure that nothing is left for Fisk to salvage. Not one scrap of metal, not one packet of powder. Everything must be destroyed." 

   Daredevil could sense Jimmy 6's amazement in his increased heart rate and quickened breathing, and his appraisal of the situation was confirmed when Jimmy 6 said "You want me to _destroy that much dope? Surely we could –" _

   "– Use it ourselves?" Fortunato finished, laughing. The sound was like wind rustling dry leaves. The laugh turned into a wheeze, and Fortunato coughed as his lungs filled with phlegm and spittle. Recovering himself, he continued "No. This isn't about business, Giacomo, this is about sending Fisk a message. He's going to regret trying to force me out of this city, I swear it." 

   Daredevil felt his heart skip a beat. This did not sound good. This war would be driven by pride on both sides, it seemed – Fortunato would be too proud to yield to a man he considered a usurper and an upstart, an upstart who upheld none of the traditions and laws of the Cosa Nostra.  The Kingpin, too, would be too proud to have his empire divided between those he considered his inferiors, his tools, his weapons. There would be massive bloodshed unless they could be stopped, and Matt Murdock knew precisely who to go to in order to facilitate just that kind of occurrence. 

* * *

   Ben Urich sat in his office at the _Daily Bugle_, his face turned a soft blue by the light reflecting off his computer screen, and the air turned thick from the smoke that swirled off the half-smoked Camel in his right hand. The ashtray that sat on the desk was overflowing with crushed butts and discarded ash, and Ben had had to empty it out more than once. He had to find some good copy for the morning edition, or Jonah would have his hide. Ben took a drag off his cigarette and exhaled a stream of smoke into the already clogged air. He coughed slightly, and cursed the day he'd been suckered into lighting up, rubbing his eyes. He could feel the puffy rings surrounding them, and imagined that he looked a mess. Sleep was a definite luxury in this business, he reflected sourly. If you were asleep when a big story hit, then you were the one that lost out, nobody else. Ben tapped a few more words into his computer, and then jumped as the phone on his desk rang shrilly. Picking it up he said "Ben Urich, _Daily Bugle_," in a tired tone of voice. 

   "Ben," said a familiar voice on the other end of the line, "it's Matt." That made Ben sit up straight, and grab a pen so that he could scribble down the details of what Daredevil was about to tell him. 

   "Matt – where are you?" he said in an almost conspiratorial whisper. 

   "I've just come back from Staten Island," Matt replied. "Fortunato's planning to hijack a shipment of heroin the Kingpin's expecting from Bangkok tomorrow morning. He doesn't want to leave anything for the Kingpin to salvage – including the Kingpin's men. He says that the shipment's expected to arrive on Pier 47 at six a.m. tomorrow morning." 

   "Thanks, Matt," Ben said. "Are you going to try and stop this?" 

   "If I can, Ben," Matt replied, worry thick in his voice. "I'll make sure that I show up. Whether I stop it or not is up to providence." 

   "Take care of yourself, Matt," Ben answered. 

   "And you, Ben." There was a click on the other end of the line, indicating that Matt had hung up. Ben realized that he was going to need to call Peter Parker – he was partnered with the kid for this assignment, after all, and with a story this big, he was going to need the kind of photos that only Peter knew how to provide. Any idiot from the gutter press could come up with this kind of a story, but without cold, hard proof, the story was as worthless as the garbage peddled in the supermarket tabloids. Ben knew that from years of experience – he had no wish to follow Eddie Brock in a downward spiral through sloppy, unsubstantiated reporting. Pressing the button on his phone to reset the connection, he dialed Peter's number and settled the phone into the crook of his shoulder. 

* * *

   Peter heard the phone ring, his mouth full of MJ's stew. Swallowing the mouthful of beef and potatoes he got up from the table and picked the receiver up from its cradle. "Hello, Parker household – Peter Parker speaking," he said in a swift, businesslike fashion. 

   "Peter?" said the voice of Ben Urich. 

   Peter smiled at the sound of the grizzled reporter's smoke-stained tones. "Hi, Ben. What are you doing calling me at this hour?" 

   "I have a favor to ask of you." 

   "Sure, Ben," Peter replied. "Shoot." 

   "I need you to help me tomorrow morning," Ben said. "I have a lead on the story we're working on, and it's a big one. Get a good night's sleep, kid – you'll need it." He then explained to Peter what Daredevil had told him, and Peter felt his appetite rapidly decreasing as he heard more and more of what Fortunato had planned. He said goodbye to Ben after agreeing to meet with him, and hung up the phone, sitting back down to his half-full plate. 

   MJ saw his sudden change in demeanor and said "What's wrong, Tiger? Who was that?" 

   "Ben Urich," Peter said, chasing a stray strand of beef around his plate with his spoon. "He says he has a lead on something to do with this whole gang warfare deal – I have to be at the docks, tomorrow morning, before dawn. Ben says that Don Fortunato is going to slaughter a whole bunch of the Kingpin's men just because they're going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." MJ shuddered. 

   "Be careful, Peter," she said simply. 

   "I will, sweetheart," he said, reaching across the table and stroking her delicate cheekbones with his fingers. She leant into his touch like a cat, and clasped his hand in her own, kissing his fingertips. 

   "I love you, Mr. Parker," she said. "I will love you until the day I die. Don't make me have to miss you as well." 

   "I promise I'll come back in one piece, MJ," Peter replied. "I haven't seen you in that underwear I bought you for your birthday yet." MJ laughed despite herself, and she grinned. 

   "Well, there's an incentive for you right there, Peter," she said. "I'll make sure I wear it for you." 

   Felicia coughed gently. "Excuse me, you two. You _do_ have a guest here, you realize?" 

   Peter flushed, and saw that MJ was having much the same reaction as he was. "Sorry, Felicia. We'll behave, I promise." Felicia waved her hand dismissively. 

   "Oh, don't worry about it, Spider," she said. "I should get going anyway. I have to remember to tape Saturday Night Live and do some laundry before I go out on the town." She chuckled. "I'll be in touch, you two." Moving over to each of them in turn, she kissed them on the cheek and hugged them tightly. "Don't be strangers, okay?" 

   "Never," Peter said, as she embraced him. 

   Suddenly, there was a clattering of the trashcan at the front of the house. Peter, MJ and Felicia all jumped, startled by the sudden noise. Both MJ and Felicia looked at Peter simultaneously, to see what his reaction was. He shook his head. 

   "My spider-sense didn't go off," he said. "It's safe." He moved to the front window, closely followed by Felicia and MJ, and looked outside. There was nothing that could have caused the sound but a cat that was wandering around mewing quietly. Peter shrugged. "Just that stray cat looking for a snack in our trash again." 

   MJ nodded. "That's the fifth time this week that cat's been there. I wonder what he can smell that makes him come back?" 

   "Better not to think about it, MJ," Peter said. "He's not doing any harm." Felicia nodded. 

   "Don't worry, MJ, he'll behave himself sooner or later. Now…" and she crossed to the door, "I must go. I'll see you two soon, all right?" She slipped out of the door, wrapping her leather jacket around her shoulders. She smiled briefly as she did so, and her eyes gleamed with a mischievous light. 

   _I said I'd think about keeping out of harm's way, Spider, but I didn't say for how long… _

* * *

   The docks of Manhattan Harbor were dark, and smelt of spilt oil and squashed fish guts, and the occasional splash of human blood. The little boat cut through the waves like a knife, even though its outward appearance painted it as an ordinary little tugboat. Inside, however, it hummed with every mod con that could have been comfortably squeezed into its little cabin. Roderick Kingsley held one such convenience in his hand – the remnants of a fine Drambuie whiskey, the ice cubes in the empty glass clinking together every time the small vessel hit a particularly strong wave, until finally the little boat came to a stop by a small jetty. Kingsley saw the hatch on the side of the boat open, and he stepped out into the chill New York air, to be greeted by a small phalanx of men armed with machine pistols and rifles, who stood in front of a long black limousine. 

   "Roderick Kingsley?" a blond man, with a tiny half-moon scar at the side of his eye, said, lifting his gun just in case. 

   "That's me," Kingsley said, his voice flat and even. 

   "Good. The boss is waiting for you." He ushered Kingsley towards the limousine, opening the side door for him and then slipping in beside his guest. 

   "I have a small favor to ask," Kingsley said, flexing his wrists. "There is a small warehouse near here which I still own under a different name. I have some equipment there which I'd like to retrieve – could we stop off there while I collect it?" 

   "I guess so," the blond man said. "Why?" 

   "Because I'd like to arrive prepared, if I may. Never let it be said that the Hobgoblin leaves bases uncovered," Kingsley said, a slight grin crossing his face. The limousine began its trip to the warehouse, and disappeared from sight as the night fog covered it like a blanket. 

* * *


	4. Underworld Unleashed: Part Four

   The warehouse was lit by a single bulb and by a single shaft of moonlight lancing in through a high window that wasn't covered by the black paint that coated the rest of the panes. It smelled of must and dust and crimes past, Roderick Kingsley noted, and that made him feel slightly more comfortable, oddly enough. If he had been doing this in the boardroom, he would have felt more like Roderick Kingsley, millionaire, and less like the Hobgoblin. 

   He preferred this identity for the moment – it gave him more scope for protecting himself if the situation turned sour, for one thing (a definite possibility, he realized, especially with the Kingpin and Don Fortunato getting ready to rip New York to bloody shreds), and for another, only a very few hoods would be willing to take him on. They probably still believed the Hobgoblin to be one man, not two, and given Jason Macendale's limited qualms about killing messily and frequently if the situation needed it, that could work to his advantage if need be. He gave a cursory examination to the rest of the warehouse for a second with a superior eye, and then returned his attention to the man standing opposite him. Though Kingsley could clearly see the man's face thanks to his Goblin-formula-enhanced physiology, he supposed that the gentleman fancied himself a mysterious shadow-dweller. Besides, if they were being observed, only someone with an ultra-expensive night-vision scope would be able to pick him out in the darkness, so it had a practical as well as a theatrical purpose. 

   "So why'd you do it, Kingsley?" the man asked. "Why'd you leave the easy life?" 

   "Norman Osborn's incarceration," Kingsley said simply. "I thought this an ideal juncture to make sure that Kingsley International was pried from Osborn's grasp for good. Even if Daniel has to reclaim it for me, at least we Kingsleys will finally have what belongs to us." He sighed. "And there was also the fact that this life is hard to walk away from completely. Becoming the Hobgoblin again has been very tempting these past few months – and your greasing the wheels with a few million dollars was the final straw." He laughed sourly. "You know, there's a certain irony here. I helped to make you, and here I am accepting business from you like a peddler." The other man raised an eyebrow. 

   "Yes, you could say that," he replied flatly. "It's odd how things can change so abruptly, isn't it?" He steepled his fingers. "Now then, to business. The Kingpin is expecting a shipment of heroin from Bangkok tomorrow morning at six a.m. What I need is for you to disrupt its movement as much as you can. My sources inform me that Don Fortunato has ordered a seizure of the goods as well, which makes this a lot easier for both of us. Do as much damage as you can to Fortunato's troops, but be sure to inflict a good deal of harm on the Kingpin's gang as well, just to allay suspicion. Once you've done that, destroy the shipment and get out of there as soon as you can. Do we understand each other?" 

   Kingsley smiled slightly and looked at the Hobgoblin mask he clutched in his right hand. "Perfectly," he said softly. 

* * *

   The alarm clock crowed loudly, making Peter's head pulse with its shrill tone. Peter sat up in bed as gently as he could, trying to disturb MJ as little as possible. She grunted softly as he moved over to his closet and slipped on his Spider-Man costume with practiced ease. Putting on a warm flannel shirt and thick jeans on over the insulated costume, he laced up his boots and buttoned his shirt before grabbing his leather jacket from the hook on the inside of the door and giving MJ a little kiss on the cheek. 

   "See you later, sweetheart," he said quietly. "I have to go meet Ben now, but I'll be home later, I promise." 

   MJ lay still for a second and then opened her eyes slightly and whispered "Be careful, Tiger." Peter smiled. 

   "I will, sweetheart. I promise." He touched her cheek and kissed her on the forehead. "I'll be back later, I promise. I love you." 

   "I love you too, Peter," MJ said. "Don't make me wait up." Peter shook his head. 

   "I won't, honey, I swear. I'll see you later, okay?" 

   He held her in his arms for a moment, letting her linger there, stroking her hair and whispering reassuring words in her ear before he left the room and went downstairs to leave the house. As he did so, MJ whispered "Good luck, Peter." 

* * *

  Peter found a quiet alley to switch to his union suit and fired a thick strand of webbing from the web-shooter on his right wrist out onto the corner of a house across the street. Swinging up and out, he launched himself into the air gracefully and fired out another line of webbing towards his next target. Soon he was in Manhattan and he was able to swing for longer distances, as well as run across rooftops to conserve precious web-fluid – the liquid itself was expensive to make and store, and he didn't want to waste any unnecessarily. He made his way towards the waterfront, picking a darkened alleyway to slip his civilian clothes back on and remove his camera from the web-sack that he had had stuck to his back on the way to the pier. He saw Ben Urich crouching down behind some oil drums, clutching a small notepad in one hand and a pen in the other, a cigarette held between his lips, and quickly ran over to join him. 

   "Glad you could make it, kid," Ben said quietly, not taking his eyes off the warehouse that lay a few hundred meters away. 

   "No problem," Peter replied. "What've you seen so far?" 

   "Not much. There's been a few punks here and there but nothing major. I'm going to stick around here for a little while longer and see if the situation changes – you might want to go and find yourself a nice little spot for taking those photographs of yours. I'm sure Jonah'll appreciate it a lot more if you actually live up to his expectations." Peter did his best to look wounded. 

   "Don't I always?" he said in mock-disappointment. Ben smiled. 

   "That's right, kid, you keep believing that." He shrugged. "We'll need good photos if we're going to have any kind of story, though. It'll save my neck and Jonah's if you can get us some pictures of the Kingpin's gang doing the dirty work – it'll make it harder for the Kingpin to refute what's happening here if we have some concrete proof of it. And if you can get some pics of Fortunato's gang, all the better – we'll need all the photos we can get." 

   Peter nodded. "Okay, Ben. You have a deal – on one condition." 

   Ben raised an eyebrow. "Which is?" 

   "Keep yourself out of harm's way, all right?" 

   Ben laughed. "Kid, I've been busy keeping myself out of harm's way since before you were in short pants. I think I can handle a few idiots with guns." He clapped Peter on the shoulder. "Thanks for the concern, though, junior. Now go do your thing, Peter – the sooner you get those pictures, the sooner we can go home." 

   Peter nodded again and left Ben, creeping quietly away from the older man's hiding place, towards another darkened passage between two storehouses, where he quickly switched back into his Spider-Man costume, pulling his mask down over his handsome features and clipping his web-shooters back onto his wrists. _Now, then, he thought. _Time to find Matt, if he's even here yet. _Looking around, he tried to find an ideal place to sit and wait for Daredevil to show up. The top of the nearest warehouse seemed to be the ideal spot, as it towered above the dock and offered the best view of the surrounding area because of it. Crawling up the side of the building, Spider-Man found Daredevil already there, sitting cross-legged and with his head pointed towards the sky. _

   "Hello, Peter," Daredevil said softly. "I heard you and Ben talking down there a moment ago – I wondered when you'd come and find me." Spider-Man crouched down beside Daredevil and looked out across the harbor, smelling the rancid odors of a thousand shipments of goods, the New Jersey garbage ferry, and sweating, over-ripe humanity as the wind blew it in his face. He grimaced beneath his mask. If it was this bad for him, he wondered, how bad was it for Daredevil, with that super-sensitive nose of his. If there was any discomfort, Matt sure wasn't showing it. _Though that doesn't prove a lot, he thought wryly. _Matt's a lawyer – bad smells are part of the job description._ _

   "So what are we looking at, Matt?" he said finally. Daredevil sighed. 

   "I can sense at least twenty heartbeats down there, Peter, and from what I heard when I did a little recon at ground level – from what I can still hear now – they're the Kingpin's men. I couldn't sense Fortunato's troops anywhere – not without bursting a blood vessel in my brain, anyway. I think they're going to make their move as and when the shipment of dope comes in." 

   Spider-Man sucked his teeth dejectedly. "Which means we're going to have to wait as well, right?" He smacked his forehead with the heel of his right hand. "For _this I left my wife alone in bed?" _

* * *

   Felicia Hardy crouched, one gloved hand pressed to the tiny speaker in her ear as she listened to Wilson Fisk calmly relaying orders into a portable telephone. His frustration that the shipment he was expecting was running late and had not even been unloaded yet, let alone transported to a secure safehouse, was clear from the sound of his voice, even through the bullet-proof glass that shielded him from the outside world. The laser microphone that Felicia was using to spy on Fisk was excellent at picking up even minor vibrations, and had come in useful more than once in her private investigations business, and as such it had helped her put away countless minor thugs. She hoped that it might be able to do the same for the Kingpin, the biggest thug of all, but she knew that she would need more than circumstantial evidence to do that. She knew she'd have to leave soon – there were armed patrols prowling the grounds of the Kingpin's townhouse, and though she had been lucky so far, she knew that that luck wouldn't last forever. She had no desire to end up bleeding to death because of her own foolishness. She gathered her trench coat closer around her and refocused her attention on the window in front of her. 

   At that moment, behind and slightly above her, a figure, cloaked in shadows, watched Felicia as she listened to the Kingpin's conversation. _Can't see exactly who that is,_ he thought. _There's too much vegetation in the way. Still, I can't just take the chance that they're friendly. I have to put them down before they give me away._ He leaped. 

   Felicia heard the vegetation behind her rustling loudly, and she whirled, a fraction of a second later, to see something black hurtling towards her. She screamed. 

* * *

   Spider-Man yawned beneath his mask. "This is getting ridiculous," he said to no one in particular. "Nothing's happening, Matt. Are you sure your information was correct?" 

   Daredevil nodded. "My information's correct, Peter – they're just behind schedule, that's all. It's not uncommon for these kinds of things to go slower than they should." He stiffened suddenly. "There's a ship coming into the dock, Peter. Let's get going." Spider-Man looked out towards the waterfront and saw what looked like a medium-sized fishing trawler steaming into the harbor, cutting through the early morning mist like a scalpel. Immediately, the dock burst into action like a hive that had just been kicked over. Swarms of the Kingpin's men erupted from their hiding places, armed with crowbars and semi-automatic weapons. They moved into the belly of the ship and brought out crates stamped with innocuous labels on pallets. One of them cracked the top off the crate nearest to him and slit open a packet of white powder with a switchblade. He dipped the tip of his finger into the white crystals and licked. The smile on his face told Spidey all that he needed to know. 

   "Come on, Matt," he said. "We'd better get moving." Daredevil nodded silently and fired his billy club's nylon line out across the harbor, where it caught onto the side of a tall wooden pole that carried telephone wires across the tops of the buildings. He leapt off the lip of the building and seemed to hang suspended in mid-air for a moment before gracefully swinging towards his quarry. Spidey followed him, webbing his way across the concrete. As he did so, he saw in horror that what he guessed had to be Fortunato's gang was arriving in droves as if from the ether. He risked a look over at Daredevil and saw that Matt was thinking the exact same thoughts as he was. 

   "Where did they come from?" he shouted. "I thought you said you couldn't sense them?" 

   "I couldn't," Daredevil replied as they neared their targets. "Either they've just arrived, or they've been hiding where I couldn't find them, or they figured out how to fool my radar sense." Peter thought he could see Daredevil shudder in mid-swing. "None of those possibilities makes me very comfortable." 

   Spidey let go his web and somersaulted a few times before landing spread-eagled against the wall of the warehouse closest to the action. He crawled up the side of the building quickly and set his automatic camera up, gluing it to the wall with a sticky glob of webbing, and then leapt back down to where gunfire was already starting to erupt. Flashes of fire burst from gun barrels on both sides, and the smell of powder was thick in the air already. He landed in the middle of the firefight, and quickly fired out three or four sticky web-balls that clogged the gun barrels of the men closest to him, and forced them to take cover as fast as they could. He kept half an eye on them as they ran, feeling a little happier when he knew that they were out of the firing line, and then grabbed the gun of the Fortunato soldier closest to him, bending it into a solid ball of metal and using it to knock the guy cold. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ben Urich scurrying closer, moving from patch of cover to patch of cover, careful to keep as low as possible. Peter wanted to scream at Ben to get away as fast as he could, but he knew that Ben was sure of what he was doing, so he concentrated on saving his own skin instead, punching a soldier of the Kingpin with a solid right cross and then kicking him backwards into another hood, sending the pair of them sprawling. A bullet suddenly winged his arm, and he felt his flesh split, immediately burning with pain even though it was just a graze. He bit his lip and tried hard to ignore the intense discomfort. Spraying a little web-fluid on the wound he hoped that that would keep it safe for the moment. He couldn't exactly wait for it to heal at this point. Suddenly, to his right, a couple of explosions rocked the pier, blowing large holes in the wooden floor and turning two of Fortunato's soldiers into bloody chunks of meat and bone. Maniacal laughter filled the air like the song of an insane bird of prey. Spidey looked upwards, as he suspected everyone else bar Daredevil was doing right about now, and then he saw it – a grinning, pale-faced apparition that he had hoped he would never see again. 

   "What a pleasant surprise, Spider-Man – I hadn't expected to see you here!" crowed the Hobgoblin as he swooped and snapped the necks of two of Fortunato's soldiers in his gloved grasp. "Such a shame we won't get to reminisce before you die." 

* * *


	5. Underworld Unleashed: Part Five

_God, my shoulder feels like it's on fire… _

   Spider-Man gritted his teeth and tried not to notice the searing pain in his flesh. It was only slightly muted by the web bandage he had sprayed on the bloody graze left where a bullet had winged him a few moments earlier, and he could feel his lifeblood oozing through the thin layer of webbing inexorably. Above him, Daredevil looped and twisted like a ballet dancer, gracefully avoiding pinging bullets and pumpkin bombs with an almost supernatural ease. _Even Matt can't keep this pace up for long,_ he thought as he somersaulted through the air to avoid the heat and flame of a sparkle blast from the Hobgoblin's gloves. _We need a way to get out of here, and fast. He swung a thick sheet of loose metal plating around to interrupt the arcing trajectory of a pumpkin bomb and heard it bounce off and explode off to his right, spraying little pieces of shrapnel all over the place, sinking them deeply into the ground like seeds made of twisted metal. _

   _Where the heck did Hobby come from?_ Spidey thought to himself. _Last I heard, he was sunning himself to death in the _Caribbean___. Why'd he come back all of a sudden? He watched as the Hobgoblin soared through the cramped surroundings effortlessly, blasting random gang members with sparkle blasts and filling the air with the stink of burning meat, all the while laughing his awful cackling laugh and hurling deadly pumpkin bombs. __Can't have been because he liked the company. Kingsley hurled a brace of bombs at a good-sized stack of the packets of dope, and watched in satisfaction as they went up in a shower of burning white powder, scattering the cooking drugs all over the ground and causing them to liquefy under the intense heat. Daredevil leapt, aiming a precise kick at Kingsley's jaw, but the Hobgoblin simply elbowed him aside, laughing contemptuously. Spidey somersaulted, crossing his arms and shooting off a couple of weblines as he did so, snagging the edge of Kingsley's cape and one of the wings of his bat-glider. As he landed, he pulled hard, uncrossing his arms and dragging Kingsley and his glider in opposite directions, bringing Kingsley to earth and his glider into a wall. As he staggered to his feet, Daredevil hopped towards him quickly and tagged his long jaw with a hard right cross. The force of the blow clearly surprised Kingsley, but did not make him fall, which surprised Daredevil in his turn. Spidey leapt over the red-clad hero and landed a boot to the center of Kingsley's stomach, finally giving the other man pause, but not for long. Kingsley simply clenched his fist and backhanded his opponent across the face, filling Spidey's vision with blinding stars for a second or two. _One thing's for sure,_ Peter thought as his jaw almost popped out of its moorings, singing with discordant pain. _He still hits like a freight train on steroids._ _

* * *

   Off away from the raging gunfire and cackling of the Hobgoblin, Ben Urich crouched, making hushed notes into a Dictaphone, having run out of notepaper, and trying desperately not to get noticed by the swarms of lowlifes that had overrun the dock in a matter of seconds. "We have a major situation here," he said hurriedly. "Seems like the Kingpin and Fortunato are really going to kill each other this time. Even Spider-Man and Daredevil aren't having any good effects on this whole mess – the Hobgoblin showed up and started blowing everything to hell. Can't see if it's Macendale or Kingsley." Ben knew that Macendale was supposedly nothing but greasy ashes and charred bones thanks to Kingsley, but he also knew that death was a fickle mistress and could, if she chose, release Jason Macendale from her cold fingers. It had happened to too many others for Ben to entirely discount the possibility that Macendale was on the glider just yet. 

   "Comfortable, Gramps?" said a rough, gravely voice behind him. Ben closed his eyes in futile frustration and fear. He'd been so absorbed in the battle unfolding in front of him, he'd forgotten to look everywhere else, too. He looked around and saw a barrel-chested blond man in a sharp Italian suit standing above him, clutching an Uzi. He raised his hands when the younger man pointed it in his face, jabbing it right under Ben's nose and squeezing the trigger so that one more twitch would mean Ben's brains and skull parting company. He froze while the young man stomped on the tape he had been recording on and crushed it into a heap of tangled recording tape and shattered plastic. He watched as the younger man put a finger to the small piece of electronic hardware pressed into his right ear, saying "Sir? We have a major situation here. Looks like the Hobgoblin is back and he's got a serious mad-on for Fortunato and yourself – he's flamin' all your dope with those damn bombs of his. Spider-Man and Daredevil are around too, doin' their good-guy schtick. Please advise." 

* * *

   The Kingpin steepled his fingers and sat back in his plush leather chair, the springs squeaking under his immensely muscular girth. "I… see," he said slowly. "Do what you can to preserve my heroin, Dolan – forget about the heroes and Fortunato for the moment. I promise you a healthy bonus if you can give me something to salvage from this." His lieutenant clicked off his radio and Fisk was left in the silence of his office, the only sound coming from the traffic down at street level. This whole development was puzzling – why had the Hobgoblin returned at all – Roderick Kingsley had been offshore somewhere content to leave his Hobgoblin identity on the shelf. What could possibly have made him want to come back? Why was he killing both sides in this dirty little turf war? Was he trying to get himself killed, or was he working for a third entity here – one that hoped to destroy _both sides and then step into the vacuum thus created? _

   The idea was absurd, Fisk decided. Who would be mad enough to try and take down both the Kingpin _and Fortunato at one stroke? _

   And yet… that very absurdity meant that he had not prepared for the possibility that it might happen. 

   _Touché…touché…well played indeed._

   The Kingpin smiled, finally. He was facing a clever opponent here. 

   The best kind. 

* * *

   Outside the Kingpin's home, Felicia Hardy screamed. 

   She screamed as the black-clad figure hurtled towards her, hands and arms outstretched as if to tackle her to the ground. She ducked out of his way nimbly and aimed a solid jab at his masked jawline, throwing him off his trajectory and sending him tumbling towards the ground in an ungainly, painful heap. Not wasting any more time, Felicia aimed her catspaw grapple at the corner of the Kingpin's house, snagging the edge of a drainpipe and preparing to swing away, after testing if it would carry her weight with one quick tug. She took a short run-up and leapt, arcing away from the house and up level with the house's roof. She tapped a stud on her glove twice in quick succession with her finger in order to detach the grappling hook's claws, and enable her to somersault out over the spiked fence that encircled the Kingpin's compound. Below her she picked out a suitable spot to land and tucked her legs in, cannonballing for maximum distance, before unfurling her long legs again and somersaulting gracefully towards the ground. She was nearing the ground when she felt herself being redirected, finding herself in the arms of the man she thought she had laid out. She yelped in alarm and tried to aim the heel of her hand towards the masked man's face, but he grabbed her fingers as they came back down to earth, saying "It's okay, Felicia. I'm not going to hurt you. I thought you were one of the Kingpin's guards – that's why I jumped at you." 

   Felicia felt her heart rise into her mouth when he said her name. As they landed, she said, "What were you doing here, anyway? Who are you? And how in blazes did you know my name?" The man in black shrugged. 

   "Too much to tell you here," he said. "Why don't we go for a nice morning latte and I'll tell you all about it then?" Felicia raised a silvery eyebrow. 

   "First you attack me, now you ask me out. You have a _seriously_ weird idea of what constitutes a good pick-up routine, my masked friend." The man in black seemed to smile underneath his mask.

   "After what I've been through recently, that's pretty tame," he said, raising his arms to either side. "So what do you say?" 

* * *

   "Why did we have to meet here?" said the lithe man as he stood in the dilapidated warehouse. "I wanted glamour when I started out in this business, and this isn't it." 

   "Perhaps you should have chosen to go into banking instead," replied his companion, who was seated behind a makeshift table formed of packing crates. "It's safer." 

   "Very funny. I thought I was supposed to be the comedian in this outfit." 

   "Based on past experience, I think the best that can be said about you is that you got the job done." 

   "I'm insulted. You ask Jonah Jameson what he thought of me, an' I bet he'll say I was a hoot." He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "Can you get the lights fixed in here? I feel like I'm going to ruin my eyesight trying to pick you out." The seated man shrugged. 

   "What can I say? I like the atmosphere." He leant forwards and continued, "If it persists, I'll get it fixed. But for now I think I will keep it the way it is. You'll just have to make do." He paused. "Now, then. Kingsley is doing a fine job – I just received word that he's trimming the Kingpin and Fortunato's forces rather nicely – but I need you to make sure that he doesn't go overboard; I don't want _everybody dead. I think a bloodbath would attract far too much attention from nosy press reporters and their ilk, don't you?" The other man tilted his head and smiled ghoulishly. _

   "I don't know," he said slowly. "I think I like the sound of that. Now, about my fee…" He rubbed the finger and thumb of his left hand together suggestively. His boss rolled his eyes. 

   "Yes, yes. You will be well-paid, I assure you." The athletically built man nodded approvingly. 

   "All I needed to hear." He snapped his fingers and there was a bright flash of light as he disappeared, seemingly into thin air, leaving the room with a pulse of brightness that seemed to linger longer than ordinary light should. It gave the seated man pause to wonder how it had been achieved, but also a little gratitude that the other man was gone. Despite his jovial demeanor, he had a deadly air about him that seemed impossible to dispel, even in his absence. 

* * *

   "Why are you even here?" Felicia Hardy asked, curiously. "You're not one of the regular costumed crowd, so –" The black-clad stranger held up his hand. 

   "Yeah, I know. I hear that all the time." He shrugged. "I was listening in on your conversation with Peter Parker and his wife and I heard Parker tell you about that phone call he received from Ben Urich. I couldn't pass up an opportunity like this, now could I?" Felicia tilted her head, puzzled. 

   "Wait a second… why were you at the Parkers' house in the first place, anyway? They're not superhero-types. What could you possibly hope to gain from snooping around their house?" 

   The black-clad stranger smiled beneath his mask. "I thought you might ask that. I'm helping Peter on a personal case." 

   "So he asked _you to help him out on a _personal_ case?" Felicia made a face. "Someone who I've never even __seen before? You'll have to come up with a better line than that, buddy. That makes your lame latte pick-up routine seem __fresh!" She moved away from him slightly, and he could see her building up strength in her legs, ready to spring, so he quickly moved backwards a couple of paces, holding his hands up in front of his face defensively. _

   "I _know_ this sounds weird," he said, "but Peter asked for my help, as Spider-Man. He'd got a tip-off about the Kingpin's plans and he passed it along to me. Spider-Man trusts me, Felicia, so you can too. I promise." _Can't tell her I found it out searching for Kaine, he thought. __There's no way __she'd trust me then. "I have to go help Spider-Man – it sounds like he needs all the help he can get." Felicia stepped forwards and aimed her catspaw at the nearest vantage point. _

   "I'm coming too," she said. "Spider needs me." The masked man laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. 

   "You can't. The Hobgoblin's ripping non-powered folks like you to pieces in there. There're people letting off God only knows how much ammo in there and it only takes one stray bullet to –" Felicia rolled her eyes and held up her hand. 

   "You sound like Spider," she said dismissively. "Look, I don't want to sound rude, but if _he couldn't get me to stay away from here, what chance do __you have? He's one of my oldest friends and I don't know you from Adam. I'm going, Mr. Mysterious-New-Super-Hero – I owe Peter that much, and I won't abandon him when he needs me. You can try and stop me if you like, but I'll beat you like a dirty throw rug if you do." She grinned. "That ought to show you that us non-powered folk aren't so easy to kill." The black-clad hero shrugged and then let his shoulders sag in defeat. _

   "All right," he said. "Come on. Peter could use our help." 

* * *

   Ben Urich watched as the Kingpin's agent finished speaking into his headpiece and then pointed his gun right at the center of Urich's head. "Nothin' personal, you understand, Gramps," he said coldly. "Strictly business." He tightened his finger on the trigger of his Uzi, and Ben waited for the searing, tearing pain of the bullets that would end his life, but they never came. Instead, he watched with a mixture of horror and relief as the man was hit in the back by a smoking pumpkin bomb and almost instantly became a charred mess of burning flesh and bone seared black by the heat of the bomb's blast. Ben looked up at the soaring figure of the Hobgoblin, who was still flying in long, lazy arcs around the pier, aiming sporadic sparkle blasts and bombs at the few hoods who were still trying to fight him, and decided that he'd got all the notes he needed. It was a pity that his tape had been destroyed, but he had more than enough scribbled pencil notes to write a story that would, he hoped, bring him a Pulitzer. He looked around briefly for Peter, but he knew that Parker was a smart kid and had probably got himself out of trouble a while ago, having got all the pictures he needed. In any case, as much as he wanted to go looking for his young friend, he knew that it was probably far too dangerous to risk taking even a cursory look-see, especially with the Hobgoblin flying around and so much lead in the air. He quickly made his way away from the pier and into the relative safety of the surrounding streets. 

* * *

   Spidey raised his arm and shot off a thin strand of webbing that arced towards Daredevil's back and snagged a spinning razor-bat. He knew that Daredevil had probably had it pegged thanks to his radar sense, but he thought it was better to be safe rather than bleeding. "I got your back, DD," he said as he quickly dodged a hail of lead that coursed from the muzzles of a group of the Kingpin's thugs. The group of hoods was trying to clear a path for themselves to the open, yawning door of the warehouse, and didn't care who they hit in the process. Bullets sang as they bounced off metal and packing crates alike, filling the air with splinters of steel and wood. Above them, the Hobgoblin laughed his obscene laugh and hurled a few pumpkin bombs their way. As tightly packed as they were, they were unable to move apart in time, and the bomb exploded with a wet splattering sound as shredded meat and shattered bone hit the floor of the pier. Spidey knew that he had to get out of here as soon as he could, and get Ben out of there too, before something similar happened to them. "Daredevil – I need you to go find Ben Urich," he said hurriedly. "He was here with me – I was taking pictures, he was reporting – I can't leave without him." Daredevil nodded imperceptibly and fired his billy club's line off towards a nub of wood that was about thirty feet away.

   "I'll be back soon, Peter," he said. "Hold out until then."

   _Easier said than done, Matt, Spidey thought. The carnage around him was incredible; Fortunato's gang was gone – half of them dead or dying, and the other half wisely deciding that discretion was the better part of valor and high-tailing it out of the harbor as fast as they could go. The Kingpin's gang was more numerous but still in bad shape – not a one of them was unscathed, and not a one of them was not bleeding from some part of their body. One of the remaining Kingpin soldiers raised his bloodied hand and fired a burst of rounds from his Uzi at Spidey and the Hobgoblin, the screech of the weapon almost drowning out Peter's own spider-sense. Spidey leapt into the air, gracefully flipping and twisting so that the Hobgoblin was fully exposed to the inaccurate but still highly deadly cloud of lead. The Goblin laughed and fired a full ten sparkle blasts, melting the slugs in mid-air; all except one of them, which slammed into the nose of the glider and bounced around inside the nose for a while, mashing guidance systems and delicate circuitry with equal ease. The Hobgoblin lost his balance as the glider whined and careened towards the ground suddenly, and slipped out of the bootstraps that usually kept him anchored firmly to the glider's wings. He fell to the ground with a meaty thud, wheezing as the air was driven from his lungs. Spidey took advantage of the Hobgoblin's momentary disorientation to leap closer and slug him across the side of the jaw, knocking the wind out of him even further, but not preventing him from driving his own fist right into Peter's ribs._

   "You don't win that easily, freak," he hissed, cuffing Spidey across the face with his other hand and dragging himself back up to a vertical base. "You should have stayed out of this while you had the chance."

   "You know I wouldn't miss a chance to do this with my old pal Roderick Kingsley," Spidey retorted. "You must know you're my _second_ favorite psychotic businessman in tights." He paused and shot two thick streams of webbing out to either side of the Hobgoblin's body, gluing his arms to his sides. It wouldn't buy him much time, but he knew that every second it _did get him was precious, and so he laid into the Hobgoblin vigorously with both hands, aiming a hard right at Kingsley's body and then a left cross along the other man's masked jaw. Kingsley's eyes glazed over beneath the mask and Spidey thought that he might just have stunned the Hobgoblin enough to take him down for a while. He was about to web the Hobgoblin's mouth shut when a loud crack of what Spidey could have sworn was thunder echoed through the warehouse and a puff of smoke announced the entry of one of Spidey's worst nightmares._

   "_Jack O' Lantern?" he said, incredulously. "The hits, they just keep on coming..." He braced himself for an attack by the weirdly costumed villain, but it never came. Instead, the man on the circular hovering glider pointed his finger at the pathetic remains of the Kingpin's heroin shipment, and a ball of flame shot out and incinerated the remainder of the drugs._

   Turning his blank-eyed head towards Spidey, he said, through the strange mouth that his mask afforded him "Top o' the mornin' to ye, lad. Step away from the Hobgoblin, if you will – he and I have business to do."

   "Why should I?" Spidey said.

   "Because if ye don't I'll do to ye what I did to that caped idiot Prodigy," he said, his voice becoming more threatening with every passing word. His pumpkin-headed grin began to grow larger and larger, and Peter felt himself sinking into the abyss once again. _"No,"_ he said through gritted teeth. _"It's not real it's not real it's not real –"_

   "Ah, but _is it all an illusion?" Jack said, his twisted grin arching upwards._

   "How did you –"

   "A good magician never reveals his tricks, lad. Now let me do my job and we'll both of us be happy, all right?" He floated closer to the trussed-up Hobgoblin. "Let me take this badly-dressed idiot back to the man who paid him, and we can all go our separate ways, hmm?" Peter staggered, his brain still a little confused and disoriented, and he was unable to prevent the Jack O' Lantern from gliding noiselessly over to where the Hobgoblin was lying encased in webbing. He reached down and slung the other villain over his shoulder.

   "Let go of me, you meddling fool!" Kingsley snapped. "I had this job sewn up!"

   "Of _course ye did, Roddy, of __course ye did. Which would explain yer boss hirin' me to back you up, wouldn't it?" He floated away from Spidey, Peter's brain still overwhelmed by the riot of information his senses had been fed, and towards the door of the warehouse. He turned when he reached the lip of the doorway, and waved a little goodbye to Spidey. "Thank ye for yer patience, lad. Couldn't've done it without ye." He turned to go, but was stopped by a boot to the side of his pumpkin-head mask, knocking him off his glider. Spidey saw that it was the same black-clad stranger that had helped him alongside Kaine at Osborn's country lodge. Kingsley fell to the ground heavily and managed to tear the webbing free from his body, some scraps of it hanging off his costume here and there, but could not move fast enough to strike at the black-clad hero that had prevented his escape. Spidey shook the confusion out of his skull and leapt towards the three men, and as he did so he saw the shapely form of the Black Cat assaulting the Jack O' Lantern alongside the mystery man. "Help Spider-Man!" the black-clad stranger said to her as Peter approached. The Hobgoblin took advantage of Peter's momentary distraction to land a good, solid blow to the side of his jaw. Peter felt something give that shouldn't have done, and he realized that he was going to feel awful in the morning. If he managed to get there, of course. Felicia cartwheeled to Spidey's side, her lithe, supple body neatly avoiding all of the Hobgoblin's sparkle blasts with only fractions of an inch to spare._

   "Hey, Spider," she said in her smoky seductress' voice. "Is that a web in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"

   "Do you ever stop?" Spider-Man said, firing off a line of webbing and swinging forwards to meet the Hobgoblin, who had retrieved his stock of bombs from his downed glider.

   "No, Spider," Felicia replied as she evaded a singeing sparkle blast from the Hobgoblin's gloves. "But then I could say the same thing about you." She leapt in close to the Hobgoblin and kicked him savagely across the face, sending a trail of Kingsley's blood looping to the floor of the warehouse from his split lips.

   "Harlot!" Kingsley snarled. "How dare you do that to me?"

   "It's easy, slimeball," Felicia said, flicking the climbing claws out from her hands with a motion of her wrists and swinging them in wicked arcs towards Kingsley's bloodied visage, scoring neat lines across his battered face. "See?"

   Spider-Man watched her draw back as he somersaulted closer to the Hobgoblin, who was staggering, clutching at his face. _Got to make this count,_ he thought. Drawing back with his right hand, he gathered his strength in that arm and cuffed the Hobgoblin across the face with every ounce of strength he had. Even pulling his punch, he felt the Hobgoblin's body go instantly limp with the force of the blow and he was afraid that he might have done more than he'd hoped for. A momentary grunt from the Hobgoblin put his fears at rest, and Spidey turned his head to look at his black-clad companion. _I can't let that guy fight Jack by himself._ "Felicia, we have to help your friend – come on," he said urgently.

   "Don't have to tell me twice, Spider," Felicia said, all traces of her former flirty attitude gone from her voice. 

   "Come now, lad, let's not prolong this any more than we have to," Jack said, as he made a fist around the black-clad hero's body with a massive gloved hand. "Let's just let me and me partner get on our way, and everything will be fine." The black-clad hero shook his head vehemently.

   "This… isn't real… I know it can't be..." he said through clenched teeth. _Oh, God, I think he's going to break my ribs…_

   "Ah, but who's the real authority on what's real and what's not here in this place, lad? Mad Jack knows, but no one else. Don't trust what the Spider says – trust yer old pal Jack to tell you what's real and what isn't, all right?"

   "No," the stranger said. "I won't trust you."

   "Ah, well, that's your mistake, then, lad," Jack said, the mouth of his huge pumpkin head engulfing the anonymous hero like a pit full of tar. "Your mistake." His laughter echoed nastily through his victim's ears, and the man in the trap simply shut his eyes behind his mask, praying for it all to go away. He opened them and found that Jack had regained his usual stature, but sprawled in a corner, stunned. Standing over him was Spider-Man and alongside him, the Black Cat.

   "Uh… thanks," he said. "I guess I owe _you_ one now."

   "Don't mention it," Spider-Man said. "Let's call that me working on getting even." He looked up and saw that Daredevil was swinging in through the building's open entrance.

   "Spider-Man! I couldn't find Ben – either they took him or he got out on his own. I know Ben well enough to know that he'd probably have done the latter. We should, too, if we want to be getting out of here alive."

   "Aye, that ye should, lad," Jack said, rising from his prone position and calling his glider towards him. 

   Daredevil turned to face the oddly clad villain, but as he did so he noticed something that puzzled him immensely. _What? Well, who would've thought? _With his radar sense, he could tell that the Jack O' Lantern was flying over to where the Hobgoblin was lying prostrate, and was draping the unconscious villain over his shoulders. Then, he heard a fizzling noise and smelt the stink of powder on the air. As he did so he heard the others crying out in shock and pain. "What is it?" he asked urgently. "What happened?"

   "Sparkle blast," Spider-Man replied, his voice hoarse with shock. "Can't see – you'll have to stop him for us."

   _Damn. Quickly unhooking his billy club from his leg, Daredevil found the Jack O' Lantern's heartbeat and threw his club with unerring accuracy towards the back of the villain's body, and had he been able to pinpoint it more quickly, the outcome would never have been in doubt. However, he had been just a fraction too late, and the club fell short. As he sensed the Jack O' Lantern getting away he heard the others finally beginning to regain their sight, their voices indicating their relief at not being permanently blind. He wondered how they would manage if they'd been robbed of their sight as he had, but without the benefits of his radar sense or other heightened senses. He supposed that he ought to be grateful that he would never get the chance to experience that. "Are you three all right now?" he asked, leaning closer to Spider-Man and putting a hand on his friend's back._

   "Yeah," Spider-Man replied. "Give me a minute and I should be able to open my eyes without closing them straight away again." Daredevil could hear the relief hanging thick in his friend's voice, and couldn't help but smile at it.

   "You should get going, my friend," he said, dropping a gentle hint that he was sure Parker would pick up on as he continued. "I suspect Peter Parker is on his way to the Bugle like Ben. Why don't you join them?" He heard Spider-Man move over to where the Black Cat was standing, her gentle scent of rosebuds and feminine perspiration alerting him to her location. Daredevil followed, but instead, moved himself to where the other hero stood. "Nice to see you again," he said softly to the black-clad stranger, with the faintest of conspiratorial smiles, before firing off his billy club's nylon line and swinging away into the night. 

   Spider-Man grasped the Black Cat's gloved hand. "Thanks, Felicia," he said, drawing up his mask so that he could kiss her on the cheek gently. Felicia leaned into the kiss, saying, "It was nothing, Spider. It's times like these I wonder why I ever let you go." She grinned as he coughed, embarrassed, and drew back from her slightly, pulling his mask back down over his mouth and wiping away a smudge of Felicia's plum-colored lipstick as he did so. She squeezed his shoulder and whispered, "Give my love to you-know-who, all right? I'll see you later, Spider." With that, she fired off her catspaw and was soon gone too, leaving Spider-Man alone with the mysterious man in black.

   "Good to work with you again," Peter said, uncertainly.

   "No problem. I enjoyed it," the other man said, clapping Spidey on the shoulder. "I guess I should be leaving too. And you shouldn't be leaving Mary Jane alone this early in the morning either, _stud_." Beneath his mask, Peter's eyes bulged. The black-clad hero smiled at this. _Ah, what fun listening in at their home can lead to…_

   "Wait – how did you –" Before he could finish his sentence, however, his friend was gone, and he was left alone on the dock. He still felt a little uneasy that someone he hardly knew had been able to tell him the pet name given to him by his wife without looking under his mask, but the guy did have a point. He aimed one of his webshooters at the corner of a building and shot off a thin strand of web. _I'm coming home, honey… _

* * *

   The warehouse was still dark, but Mad Jack's light illuminated it a little, the unearthly flame that surrounded his pumpkin-shaped head casting an eerie glow on the surrounding area. The Hobgoblin was sitting in a chair not far away, his mask off and a surly scowl on his face. "I had that job sewn up," he grumbled. "I had that dope burned. But then that wall-crawling idiot Spider-Man had to show up and everything was ruined. Why he was even there I don't know – he usually only bothers with things in Manhattan, and even he can't be everywhere at once. How did he know where to find me?"

   "Maybe he tracked your stench, lad?" Mad Jack said finally. "You certainly leave enough hot air to make a trail that even a blind kitten could follow." That got the Hobgoblin out of his seat, his gloves' sparkle blasters crackling.

   "Shut up, you… you freak! I've been in this game a lot longer than you have – so don't you presume to tell _me_ how to run my own affairs!" Mad Jack simply folded his arms.

   "Who said I was doing that, lad?" he said flatly. "I was only stating the obvious."

   Before the Hobgoblin could reply, their mutual employer entered the room through a side door. "Well done," he said. "I commend you for getting the job done. This ought to put a sizeable dent in my competitors' business – you are to be congratulated." He stepped forwards to shake Mad Jack's hand, his masked face finally coming into the light. "You should be flattered. The Rose does not give such praise lightly."

* * *


	6. Underworld Unleashed: Part Six

"This is Trish Tilby, for CNBC. I'm standing in front of what was the scene of a ferocious battle between the vigilantes Spider-Man and Daredevil, the supervillains Hobgoblin and Jack O' Lantern, and the combined forces of the Kingpin and Don Fortunato this morning. As you can see, the building's superstructure has been almost completely destroyed, and the contents have been burned to a crisp, along with several members of both gangs. This incident does not seem to bode well for the future of this city, but we can only hope that this assessment is wrong, even after taking into account the rising crime in the city. There has been speculation, also, that this battle was drug related, and we have a member of the clean-up crew here with us to try and confirm that. Mr. Ellison, what can you tell us about what you found in there?" 

"Well, there was traces of liquid heroin in the ashes, pints of the stuff. I don't know how much there was in total, but it must have been a couple tons at least. I'd like to run into the guys who brought this in so's I could tell what I think of 'em. My kids are just starting high school, and if they ever got mixed up in this stuff, I don't know what I'd do. What kind of sicko uses this stuff to get rich off of other people's suffering?" 

"Thanks for your time, Mr. Ellison. I hope your children stay safe. We can only hope. Once again, I'm Trish Tilby, for CNBC news. Back to you in the studio, Jeff -" The Kingpin clicked off the television set in disgust. "We can only hope indeed, Ms Tilby. I want this town for my organization, and what the Kingpin wants, he usually gets. Whether that's with or without Fortunato's blood on my hands makes little difference to me, but it might make a world of difference to you..." 

* * *

Fortunato curled his lip. "Giacomo, I lost a lot of good men on that botch job. I hope the Kingpin's feeling the pinch as much as I am." 

Jimmy Six nodded, rubbing his stubbled chin. "I do too, Dad - we sure showed him who's gonna be boss in this town. But you know what gets me? If it hadn't been for the Hobgoblin and that Jack O' Lantern freak, we'da had that job finished before the Kingpin's own goombas had gotten off a single shot." Fortunato snorted. 

"Don't flatter yourself, Giacomo. Those soldiers I sent with you weren't exactly Special Forces material. They'd have made a mess of it whatever had happened, I promise you that. No, the real problem here is: who decided to try and put himself between myself and the Kingpin with such powerful hired help at his side? I had thought Hammerhead wasn't trying to expand at this point - and even if he was, I doubt he could have the foresight to hire two superpowered thugs like the Hobgoblin and the Jack O' Lantern. I think we have a new player on the board, Giacomo - one who doesn't know his place. I think we're going to have to find this upstart and teach him some manners, don't you?" Jimmy Six smiled nastily and cracked his knuckles one by one. 

"Sounds like a plan to me, Dad." 

* * *

The Rose watched the news broadcast and smiled beneath his mask. Things were progressing quite nicely. Soon he'd have no trouble usurping the two major crime syndicates as they fought over scraps of turf like rats in a trash can. It would be entirely easier than he'd suspected, and he liked the sound of that. _Yes_. 

* * *

The Bugle newsroom was a flurry of noise and jostling bodies as Peter emerged from the lift. He could almost smell the newsprint as he wandered towards JJJ's office and the darkroom nearby. As he did so, he saw Betty Brant and Ben Urich standing apart from the crowd, Betty's face telling him all he needed to know about her mood. She looked worried. As he neared them, he overheard why. 

"Are you sure that was really Roderick Kingsley in that Hobgoblin suit?" she asked, her face pale and anxious. Peter could imagine why she'd want to make sure. Kingsley had duped her late husband into being the Hobgoblin on a number of occasions, and given the frequency with which other versions of the Goblin motif seemed to return from the dead, Peter could well understand why she might think that Ned Leeds had return too. He recalled when Kingsley had first shown his ugly yellow mask around New York again. Betty had almost had conniptions when she thought Ned had returned, and this was no different - and frankly, Peter didn't blame her. Ben put his hand on her shoulder, and gripped it tightly. 

"It wasn't Ned, kid," he said softly. "I can tell you that much - Daredevil was there at the docks too, and he confirmed it for me. Now I know you probably don't trust the word of a guy who runs around Hell's Kitchen in ketchup-colored tights, but you can trust me when I tell you DD ain't one to lie, Betty." Peter coughed gently, and Betty and Ben turned quickly, their attention diverted (gratefully so, in both their cases, Peter thought). 

"I need to develop some pictures, Ben," he said, holding up a small film case. "My camera's a heap of junk right now thanks to some maggia guy's stray bullet, but I managed to salvage about half the film. There are some good shots here, I think, if you want them." Ben grinned. 

"Good work, kid. Go on in - I don't think anyone else is using the dark room right now, so you ought to have a free ride." He nodded towards JJJ's office. "Better steer clear of the big guy, though - word has it Marla's trying out some new-age bull on him to help him quit 'those damn cigars' of his. It's done nothing but make him even crankier." 

"I don't know how you even notice the difference, Ben," Peter laughed. "I'll bear that in mind, though." He looked over at Betty. "You going to be okay?" Betty raised an eyebrow. 

"Sure," she said. "Just because I asked Ben a few questions about the raid this morning, doesn't mean I'm coming apart at the seams. I appreciate the thought, Peter, but if I need a shoulder to cry on, let me come to you, all right?" She kissed him on the cheek. "You're such a good man, Peter - I don't know why I let you go." 

"Bad bathroom habits, wasn't it?" Peter grinned. "All right, Betty. I get the message. I gotta go develop film, so I'll see you later, okay?" 

Betty nodded. "Sure," she said again. "I'll be around." 

Peter moved as quickly as he could through the throng of people and towards the vacant darkroom. Once inside, he brought out the undamaged half of the film that he had retrieved from the remains of his camera at the dockside. He developed the salvageable pictures, keeping the ones with the mysterious stranger to one side. He thought that he'd keep those for himself so that he could study them further, and perhaps try to analyze them to try and ascertain who the man was under the mask. Other than those, he had some really good shots of the gangs, the drugs, and, most excitingly, the Hobgoblin. It was strange, though - he was sure that the Jack O' Lantern had to have been in some of the shots (there was one shot, for instance, where the Hobgoblin was reeling from some sort of attack, but no visible assailant was present). The Jack O' Lantern must have been able to refract the light around his costume somehow, in order to make himself effectively invisible. Peter didn't know whether to be impressed or unnerved by that. 

When he'd finished with his photographs, Peter left the dark room and almost ran straight into Robbie, who had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, and was drinking black coffee from a plain blue mug. "Good morning, Peter," he said, taking a sip of the steaming liquid as Peter handed him the packet of photographs. "These are to go with Ben's story, correct?" 

"Yeah," Peter replied. "I think I got some really good shots here - the only thing that worries me is that Jonah's going to freak when he sees Spidey's involved." 

Robbie nodded, rifling through the packet of photos with his thumb. "I agree, Peter - these _are_ good. I'm assuming that since Spider-Man's in these pictures, he tipped you off to this?" 

Peter shrugged. "Well, it wasn't him this time - for a change. It was Daredevil - Spidey hangs around with him a lot, and you know they shared this bust. He thought that since I knew Spider-Man, I ought to let him know about it. He said it would beat swinging around Manhattan Island trying to find him." Robbie smiled. 

"Is that right?" he said. "Well, the man has sense, I'll give him that. He trusted you that much?" 

"Must be my boyish good looks," Peter replied. "Look, Robbie, can I leave these pictures with you? I need to get home to MJ. She's been hassling me to model for her design sketches, and I don't want to let her down." The crow's-feet at the edges of Robbie's eyes crinkled as he smiled widely. 

"You'll cherish these moments when you're my age, Peter, I promise you that." 

Peter returned Robbie's grin. "I already do, Robbie. I'll see you later." He slipped the packet of photos into Robbie's free hand and left the Bugle offices, after making sure to say goodbye to Betty and Ben first, before moving up to the Bugle's roof and changing into his Spidey gear, webbing his clothes up into a web-package as he did so. 

* * *

The Kingpin dialed the phone on his desk, and the ring tone on the other end of the line was replaced by a gruff Italian-American voice. "Hello?" it said brusquely. 

"Don Fortunato?" Fisk said shortly. "We have to settle this, you and I. That news broadcast was the last thing either of us needed. We could do without hairspray-addled reporters sneaking around our affairs, don't you agree?" 

"Fisk," Fortunato said, as if he had just scraped something distasteful off the bottom of his Gucci loafers. "Much as I hate to admit it, I agree with you about this whole affair. What do you want to do about it?" 

"A meeting," Fisk said shortly. "On neutral ground, outside Manhattan, in two days' time. We need to settle this war once and for all, and we can't do that with the eyes of the whole city on us." 

"No, we can't." Fortunato's voice sounded deflated, as if the old man had conceded to the inevitable. "All right, Fisk. You have your meeting. Where do we meet?" 

"I'd suggest somewhere quite a way away from here," Fisk said, rubbing his chin. "The city limits north of here seems like an appropriate choice - we'll both be away from our bases, and we'll be able to get there easily enough. I have no bases there, and so far as I know - and I know a lot, Don Fortunato, believe me - neither do you. What do you say? Do we have an agreement?" 

There was an audible sound on the other end of the line, that sounded like a sigh. Fortunato paused for another moment before agreeing. "All right, Kingpin. You have your deal. But rest assured, if I do not get to keep what is mine, you'll pay." 

Fisk laughed. "I'm sure if you keep believing that, old man, it'll make you feel a lot better. Good day." He pressed a button on his desk, and the lithe, statuesque form of Delilah sashayed into his office. "Prompt as usual, Delilah? Good. I have a job for you - I need your protection at the meeting between Fortunato and myself that I've just arranged." Delilah shrugged her shoulders, the muscles rippling beneath her skin. 

"Oooh," she said huskily. "Does this mean I get to break things?" 

"Indeed, my dear," the Kingpin replied. "I neglected to mention - Fortunato will not be leaving this meeting of ours alive." 

Delilah smiled, her lips forming a seductive Cupid's-bow shape. "Just what I needed to hear." 

* * *

Mad Jack smiled as he heard Delilah's words through the minute bug he had planted a few hours earlier. He slapped another tiny, almost transparent bug on the wall of the office that he was floating by. He floated past a security camera and waved to it condescendingly. It stared blindly back at him, its cyclopean eye unable to see even the faintest trace of him. _Time for me to get this information back to me boss_, he thought. _Don't want to keep the little power-freak waiting, now do we?_

* * *

Peter let go of the last thin strand of webbing and somersaulted a few times before finding a quiet alleyway in which to change into his civvies. He buttoned up his shirt and pulled on his boots and trousers, before walking towards his house with his hands in his pockets, thinking about how he was going to spend the rest of the day. He congratulated himself on actually saving the afternoon for himself and his wife, but as soon as he neared his home, he saw, concealed in one of the trees near his home, the stranger in black. _Figures_, he thought. Quickly, he sprinted over to where the mystery man sat, and asked, "What are you doing here?" 

"I have a message for you, Peter," the other man said. "I have a lead on Kaine. Apparently the big lug is running loose in Canada right now - and where Kaine goes, I figure your daughter isn't far away. I'll keep you posted." 

"You better, pal," Peter said, with a reluctant smile. Then something struck him, and he said, curiously, "Daredevil said something about working with you again. What was that all about?" The black-clad man tapped the side of his nose, as if to say that that was off-limits. 

"We worked together before on a free day. Leave it at that, all right?" He pointed behind Peter, and continued, "Looks like your significant other is up and about, Peter. She looks like she could do with a hug. Go get her." Peter turned for a moment to see MJ opening the back door and raising the venetian blinds in order to let the sunlight in more fully. He grinned, and then turned back to wish his visitor goodbye - only to find that he had disappeared. _Huh_, he thought in disbelief. _I thought only pointy-eared detectives were allowed to do that!_ Shelving that mystery for a while, he moved quickly over to the doorway, where he goosed MJ gently, before drawing her close for a long, tender kiss. 

"You're back early," MJ said breathlessly. "Did you sell those pictures?" 

"All of them," Peter said, with a grin. "Looks like we can eat this month, after all." MJ snapped her fingers. 

"Talking of food, Peter, I made some sandwiches for you for when you got back. I thought you'd need protein to heal that shoulder of yours, so I got the best beef I could, and spiced it with that relish I know you like. How does that sound?" 

Peter raised an eyebrow. "What do I have to do in return?" 

MJ smiled, and slipped her arms around his waist again. "Well... you have the afternoon off... I have the afternoon off... we both have nowhere to go... you can model for me, like I asked you to." 

Peter groaned. 

Suddenly getting bed rest seemed like a very good idea. 

* * *


End file.
